Um, heh so it seems we're married
by JadeHo
Summary: Prompt fill for ZombieCyborgAssassin (on AO3). The prompt: "Bucky/Darcy - "Um, heh... so it seems we're married..." Hope this suits and you like the little extra I threw in at the end!


When Darcy Lewis had agreed to throw away the last vestiges of her normal life and go against the Sokovia Accords with their attempts to control regular old genius scientists such as one Dr. Jane Foster, she thought she was simply agreeing to come on board and take care of Jane. Sure, "on board" involved a secret facility and being branded a fugitive, but she was of the opinion that once you knew enough secrets of the Universe, regular day jobs were way too boring anyway.

But the Secret Avengers, as some had penned them, had other plans for Darcy Lewis.

It turns out that going rogue and basically having the UN be pissed off at you made enticing people to join your cause a difficult prospect. The world was full of wusses, Darcy would explain.

So six months into her newest gig, she woke up one morning and realized that she really wasn't _just_ a scientist wrangler. She was basically a super spy at least fifty percent of the time. And how did she know this?

Darcy Lewis was naked.

In bed.

With James Bucky Barnes.

Also known as The Winter Soldier.

She made a sound and Bucky chuckled from where he was next to her, arm and a leg thrown haphazardly over her body possessively.

"Did you just 'meep'?" He asked incredulously.

"Captain America told me not to do this," Darcy stammered out. "It was in my pre-op debrief instructions."

"Nah," Bucky reasoned. "Steve told you that you didn't _have_ to do this to maintain our cover. He didn't tell you that you _couldn't_ do this."

"It was heavily implied," Darcy said dryly.

Next to her she felt Bucky shrug, and deciding she couldn't deal with the facts in front of her before she had coffee, Darcy snuck out from under the super soldier and made for the bathroom.

She definitely didn't scamper, thank you very much.

Then of course all hell had broken loose, their cover was blown, and she hadn't had time to deal with it before they were hurrying for their extraction and then whisked away to separate debriefs.

With all potentially awkward romantical situations (shut up, Jane, it's a word) involving your secret crush, Darcy liked to think that there was a window of opportunity. If something happened, you had to resolve any awkwardness, talk about your feelings, and reach a decision on what said romantical situation was going to lead to, i.e., a relationship, friends-with-benefits, or a reset back to your pre-situation status.

How long the window was varied based on your relationship going into it. And as much as she'd had a hopeless crush on Bucky, they'd at least been pals since he got cured in Wakanda and flew in to rejoin the fight alongside Steve. So the way Darcy saw it, they might have been lucky enough to stretch their window to a day or two.

But by the time two weeks rolled around and she had seen neither hide nor hair of Bucky, well, she figured that was answer enough for her. He was giving her space to get over the encounter because he'd figured out her crush and didn't reciprocate her feelings. And Darcy could handle that. She was a big girl.

A big girl who, when she announced she was done spying and actually was going to only work in science lab had been granted a few staff below her. Including an assistant who was pretty good and scaring off and or keeping away people Darcy didn't really want to see. So she put Bucky on the list temporarily so she could lick her wounds without having to be all buddy buddy with the guy for a while.

It worked well enough for an additional couple weeks until she looked up from her desk one day to a soft knock.

"Whaaaaa?!" Darcy cleared her throat then tried again, "what are you doing here? You didn't kill Sandra to get in, right?"

"That your assistant's name, Doll?" Bucky asked, waving off the accusation since Darcy knew it wasn't true anyway. "She never introduced herself to me, she'd just tell me you were too busy to talk."

"Yes, Sandra, assistant. Was supposed to keep you out. Probably fired now," Darcy muttered, but of course Bucky heard her with his super hearing.

"Why are you running away from me?" Bucky asked sounding more than a little upset.

"You ran away first!" Darcy yelled, hands thrown up in the air.

"I had to go back for the mission and to try to take care of some paperworks after you freaked out. Not that it helped anyway. I was too late."

"The great Winter Soldier ran into a problem he couldn't solve?"

"Come on, Darcy. You regret sleeping with me, okay, but don't call me that! Especially not since-" Bucky cut himself off with a wince and then all of the sudden was looking everywhere _but_ at Darcy.

Eyes narrowed, Darcy asked pointedly, "since what? And who said I regret- no, wait. One thing at a time. Since what?"

In that moment Bucky looked more insecure and vulnerable than Darcy had ever seen before, but he finally managed to stammer out, "Um heh… so it seems we're married."

"WE'RE WHAT?!' Darcy screamed, unfazed by everyone else picking up their heads and turning to look at the doorway of her office from the labs.

"Married."

Darcy flailed an arm behind her wordlessly until she located her chair then flopped in it.

"But. But. How?!" She finally squeaked out.

"Well, I don't know how much of that night you remember."

"I wasn't drunk, James!" Darcy jumped back on her feet to yell once more. "I remember everything!"

You could have heard a pin drop in the lab, but neither Darcy nor Bucky paid any heed to their audience.

"Oh," Bucky practically whispered. "I didn't think you were at the time, but then you ran away and I thought maybe you'd had more to drink than I realized and were angry because I'd taken advantage."

"You did no such thing," Darcy reassured him softly. "Is that why you were avoiding me? You felt guilty?"

Bucky lowered his head and gave an almost imperceptible nod, and Darcy couldn't stop herself from going around the table and smushing his face a little. Then, because he was just too precious and it seemed maybe her crush was reciprocated after all, Darcy pulled him into a kiss. In the background, Jane started shooing everyone out of the lab, but neither noticed that they finally had some privacy.

It was as if all the tension melted out of Bucky as he slowly returned the kiss, pleased to find that everything was just a misunderstanding. Well, everything except…

"Darcy, you gotta stop for a minute. We're married."

He pulled back and then the story was just flowing out of him. How he'd finally gotten a translation for the ceremony thing that had been going on around them at debrief and realized it had been a wedding ceremony. How he'd promptly basically stolen a Quinjet to try to get back to the hotel before any paperwork could be filed. How he'd discovered that they'd somehow stupidly used their real names and that was how their covers were blown.

Darcy winced at that one and admitted that while she hadn't been drunk, she HAD been tipsy enough to confide in one of the hotel staff who'd tried to verify the spelling of their names.

Bucky just sighed at the information but finished out his story. The paperwork was already filed and legally, even if it was in another country, they were married.

"So what?" Darcy finally asked when he finished.

Bucky boggled at her for a full minute before he said, "so, we're _married_."

Darcy waved it away and said, "I like you. I think you might actually like me after all."

"I do!" Bucky rushed to reassure her.

"So, if we hadn't both been dumb, we probably would have been dating by now."

Bucky grinned and agreed, "if I'd had my way about it, we would have been."

"So then, we just leave it alone for now and see how things go. If we break up, then we get a divorce, but otherwise, we're all set. No stressful wedding to plan or big proposal to worry about."

"You're a little crazy, Doll," Bucky teased.

"That wasn't a no," Darcy pointed out. "So I think you like my plan. Plus you've got all those old timey sensibilities… and you've got a best friend to answer to who has even stronger ones."

"True, though Steve's way more of a stick in the mud than I am after everything else," Bucky told her. "But what does that have to do with anything?'

"Well, I mean, it seems kinda weird to get a divorce considering the stance you probably have on these things. What with the baby and all."

"Baby?" Bucky stammered then felt around behind him for a seat.

"See! It's not so funny when people just drop huge news all casual like is it?" Darcy pointed an accusatory finger at Bucky.

"Was that…" Bucky took in a deep breath then let it out slowly before trying again. "Was that a joke?"

"Hell no!" Darcy said. "Bun is definitely in the oven; I was just making a point!"

At that point, she got to watch the Winter Soldier go catatonic. Chuckling a little to herself, Darcy just sat back down and got back to her paperwork. Eventually he'd shake it off, and then they'd talk… again.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm trying (and struggling) to ease my way back into writing with oneshots, so if you have any prompts, soulmate or otherwise, please send them along! You can also find me on Tumblr as jdho2. You too can have your very own oneshot(s).


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